Made in Norway - Norwegian Architecture Today

(By Ingerid Helsing Almaas (ed.), Arkitektur N, the Norwegian Review of Architecture)

Does “Made in Norway” actually have any meaning today in visual terms? How can we define what is distinctively Norwegian?

Surely trends in architecture and design know no national borders. Today’s world is – more than anything else – characterised by a fine network of interconnected events and trends that affect each other across national borders. Therefore, today we talk about the meeting of different cultures, cultural exchanges and, not least, about the mutual dependence that ties together the nations of a globalised world, which may be greater now than ever before in human history.

In this situation, where decisions made in faraway places or in one of the many international cooperation bodies may have a bigger impact on our everyday life than decisions made at home, we might think that the role of the nation state has been weakened.

But in fact, the opposite may well be true, and the field of architecture is a case in point. Despite the globalisation of the building industry during the last century, architecture – perhaps more than many other fields of human endeavour – has to respond to local conditions – such as the weather. Providing shelter for human activities is still the primary purpose of most of our buildings, and the challenges posed by different climates will continue to shape architecture in different ways. Cold climates will rarely produce the same architecture as warmer ones.

But architecture is, of course, also a cultural response. Architecture is never based on a single truth; it is never a fixed answer to a given set of conditions. Design involves making choices, and in those choices our natural, social and economic resources are transformed into an expression of our culture, which offers new possibilities. Buildings reflect the ideas, values and priorities of a society. Through our architecture, we demonstrate who we are, both as individuals and as a community.

The projects in this book are examples of how Norwegian clients, architects and builders have responded to different situations in Norway today. They address various challenges posed by contemporary Norwegian society: How do we develop our cities? How do we deal with history? How do we create spaces where people can meet and interact in ways that are relevant and productive today? And, not least, how do we respond to the natural landscape?

This last question has perhaps given Norwegian architecture one of its distinctive characteristics. Norway is sparsely populated outside the main cities. It is a coastal nation where the sea, fjords, mountains and forests are never far away, and the relationship to the untouched natural landscape continues to be an important feature of many of our building projects. It has been said that our buildings are close to nature, and subjected to powerful natural forces, but our best architecture provides a challenge or a contrast that allows for a deeper understanding of both nature and culture.

Norwegian architecture has attracted international attention during the last couple of decades, culminating in several prestigious international awards, such as the Pritzker Prize to Sverre Fehn in 1997, and last year’s Mies van der Rohe award to Snøhetta for the Opera House in Oslo. Despite its small population, Norway has the potential to make an important contribution to design and architecture, particularly in those areas where Norway is at the forefront internationally, such social welfare, responsible management of natural resources and sustainable development.

Architecture is a globalised field where a single nation can produce something distinctive and unique that will be of value to the international community. The projects in this book are examples of this. Oslo, March 2010 Jonas Gahr Støre, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

More information on the book: www.arkitektur-n.no